Natalie Babbitt is a champion at descriptions, bringing in seemingly inoccuos information into the story that has such deep significance as the story progresses. The constant repetition of the toad in the story, plays well in the end, being the thread that loosely keeps the story going from beginning to end. The whole story rolls in a sing song fashion, ambling away on three hot summer days. The beautiful descriptions of objects such as blank white dawns, smeared sunsets, peculiar house, gurgling water, crumpled dress, mindlessly hot, catholic mixture of houses, and even the rattling pick-up truck in the end. Each detail paints such a vivid picture of the small town, Winnie’s life, and the Tucks, that if the reader stumbled across such a town or such people, we would be able to recognize them in an instant.